Monday, February 9, 2009

Notes on Not Art

Everyone uses J.K. Rowling to prove their points about capitalism and merit, but compare her to Damien Hirst. Becoming a prestigious contemporary artist requires more money than writing does. You need money to buy materials to make art. After you acquire supplies, to create a successful art object one has to prove that the object that they created or altered suggests the traditionally accepted boundaries in society are wrong-- that something exists beyond the object itself and the object's definition. All definitions are called into question based on what previously was and was only. Writing, through the use of words as themselves, does not reveal a lie present in the real world, but rather, the infinite possibility of the world in which they exist. A word is nothing but a word, and that is what it means. A painting should mean more than the existence of paint. A taxidermied animal (a la Hirst) is supposed to mean more than itself and thereby call into question our capacity for categorization. Humans are emotive technicians. We are good at feeling and we are good with developing technique. Art shows the cracks in the framework of internalized technique, exploiting inherently possible variations. Writing already includes all variation.